Talking Underwater Effect

buzzsmith · Post by **buzzsmith** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:03 pm

Got a possible advertising project coming up where the producer wants his VO guy to sound like he's talking underwater...obviously must be intelligible.

I looked through my plugs and only found Waves MetaFlanger which has an "Underwater" preset.

Not very convincing.

Anyone know of other tricks or plugs?

Thanks!

Buzz

resolectric · Post by **resolectric** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:33 pm

I believe a blend of Chorus and Tremolo effects will be more convincing than Flanger.
The "feedback" characteristics of a Flanger effect make it not very convincing for underwater sound simulation, giving it a "mettalic" ring.

splatterbass · Post by **splatterbass** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 6:39 pm

and a little touch of orange vocoder.

KarlSutton · Post by **KarlSutton** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:17 am

add a bed of deep underwater bubbles & every time he talks have little bubbles layered with his talking

buzzsmith · Post by **buzzsmith** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 2:51 pm

KarlSutton wrote:add a bed of deep underwater bubbles & every time he talks have little bubbles layered with his talking

I thought about that as well in the background.

Thanks to splatter and resoelectric, too.

Buzz

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:13 pm

KarlSutton wrote:add a bed of deep underwater bubbles & every time he talks have little bubbles layered with his talking

Yeah, gated bubbles. That's the ticket!

Phil

David Polich · Post by **David Polich** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:06 pm

Check this out -

http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Speakerp ... phone.html

might be something that works in there.

Kawentzmann · Post by **Kawentzmann** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:34 pm

Vincent Bell has a signature underwater sound. And I am trying to get it once in a while, but always end in frustration. It includes reverb. Funny reverb wasn••™t mentioned yet. It••™s the most basic wet sound I think.

splatterbass · Post by **splatterbass** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 10:16 am

dont know if its true, but i heard jimi hendrix dropped a crappy speaker into a bucket of water to try and get a cool sound.

chrispick · Post by **chrispick** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:22 am

resolectric wrote:I believe a blend of Chorus and Tremolo effects will be more convincing than Flanger.
The "feedback" characteristics of a Flanger effect make it not very convincing for underwater sound simulation, giving it a "mettalic" ring.

+1.

Add some odd, closed-space impulse response reverb to seal the deal.

I think people expect to hear something a little warbly, diffused and echoey, although, in truth, most things just sound louder under water. One of those expectation vs. reality things.

Of course, you could mic someone talking into a pail of water and see how far that gets you. You know, like you did when you were a kid in a swimming pool.

I was listening to commentary on a Simpsons compilation DVD. In the episode, Homer was faking a kidnapping and wanted to disguise his voice during the ransom call so that it sounded like talking through a kazoo. After trying a bunch of process effects, they finally just had Dan Castellaneta talk with a kazoo in his mouth. Done and done.

buzzsmith · Post by **buzzsmith** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 6:03 am

I thought about trying a combination of effects and an actual test with some real world devices like chrispick suggested.

The project hasn't got the go-ahead yet, so thankfully, I have time to check out youse guys' suggestions and think about it a bit.

Buzz

leigh · Post by **leigh** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 7:30 pm

Geoff Emerick in his recent book relates how they tried to get John Lennon to sound like he was under water on "Yellow Submarine" by putting a small microphone in a condom and lowering it into a milk bottle filled with water. They weren't successful, but it might get you thinking in a different direction.

And with forty years of advances in condoms, who knows!

**Leigh

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 8:46 pm

Funny. I just scored a commercial for a zoo on Wed. and was going for that exact effect but with singing (penguins on screen). In the end I rejected it for a cleaner sound with bubbles and splashes in the background (the producer liked it better as well). I slightly gated the voice with an LFO and tried chorusing but didn't like the pitch shifting.

There used to be an Apple voice called "Bubbles" (maybe it's still around, I never use the speaking aspect of the Mac).